The uncontrolled overfeeding by private people and outside the City Council of the cat colony that has its habitat in the vicinity of the Tony Gallardo Park is putting the fauna of the Maspalomas Dunes Special Natural Reserve in serious danger.
This feline colony is cared for and controlled daily by volunteer experts under the supervision of the City Council in compliance with the new Law 7/2023 on the Protection of Animal Welfare, but the constant increase and refilling of the feeders and waterers by people unrelated to it is causing it to overfed cats do not finish the food and, in turn, a call effect for invasive species of rodents such as rats and hedgehogs that attack the nests of the fauna that enriches the biodiversity of the Nature Reserve, damaging its reproductive chain.
Among the threatened animals, protected reptiles stand out such as the giant lizards of Gran Canaria, the mullet and the perenquenes, and also nesting birds such as herons, egrets, rockfish and plovers, little ones and plovers, the latter of which are truly on the brink of extinction.
Faced with this situation, members of Gesplán and those responsible for the Educa Ecoisla environmental education project, from the Gran Canaria Cabildo, carried out a civic prevention action this Tuesday in the affected area starring about twenty students and three teachers from the IES Faro de Maspalomas, which was supported by the eighth deputy mayor and Councilor for Health, Araceli Armas Cruz, and the councilors delegates for Education and Parks and Gardens, Esther Delgado Sánchez and Eduardo Armas Herrera, respectively.
The action consisted of the placement of fifty small-format laminated posters with dissuasive messages that the students themselves illustrated and prepared after the previous training and awareness talk they received on this matter two weeks ago at their educational center. “Do not feed the cat” or “Food remains encourage the appearance of rodents and harm the fauna of the Reserve”, are some of the legends in German and Spanish that can be read on the posters that were hung in the tarahales. of the most problematic points of the feline feeders, and also in view of passers-by in the pedestrian accesses and at the La Charca bird viewpoint.
serious civility problem
The Councilor for Health, Araceli Armas, recognizes that “this is a preventive and deterrent measure that seeks to gradually undermine a serious problem of civility, because no one without specific authorization from the City Council can feed the feline colonies. The Cleaning and Parks and Gardens operators constantly empty and remove the unauthorized feeders almost daily, and the Local Police are already trying to identify those who are committing this negligence.”
Armas Cruz admits that, in addition to this dissuasive measure, “the City Council is studying the procedure to soon proceed with the transfer of the feline colony to another that already exists on the periphery of the protected space. This is an action that, due to its enormous complexity, will last over time, since it will require a capture and management procedure classified in accordance with the Animal Protection Law, which also entails the specialized intervention of a veterinarian and prolonged subsequent monitoring. lasting more than a year.”
